


Musical Chairs

by pipisafoat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-10-28 06:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20774351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipisafoat/pseuds/pipisafoat
Summary: Sometimes, Rodney uses his childhood refuge to make life on Atlantis more bearable. Sometimes, the music turns on him.





	1. Great Clinical Player

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I know this is not my best work, but I'm breaking a dry spell with it and also just need the idea out of my head.)

His fingers dance over the keys like swans over water, gliding over the notes, touching down just long enough to sound the tunes before flitting to the next key. He chants under his breath a mnemonic that keeps him on track with his playing, but he’s careful not to let it become audible. The lab is full of people who already don’t like him.

The keys slide away under his fingers, leaving his computer’s keyboard. He closes his eyes, sinks into the code that he can hold in his head just as easily as in the CPU. Minus x squared. B flat. Times the square root of y. F sharp.

“Rodney, have you determined the function of this artifact yet?” Radek interrupts, holding up a small sphere, and just like that the music disappears. Rodney fights to keep his anger reigned in.

“No.”

Radek sighs, a long-suffering sound. “We need—“

“We need power first. I determined this is not related to power. I’m recalibrating the naquadah generators to increase input. Important enough for you?”

There’s a long silence, and Rodney finally looks up to find pity on the other man’s face. “Yes,” he finally answers. “That is important.”

“Leave the device here. I’ll get to it soon.”

Radek sets it down and leaves silently, but it makes no difference: Rodney cannot get the music of the formulas back. Sighing, he picks up the device and initializes it. Theres a hum, and five indentations appear around the small ball. It’s a simple matter of shifting his fingers into their homes and then … then what?

He flexes a finger to see what happens, and a tone rings out clearly. Another finger, a different tone. Different heights and orientations change the sounds, and it’s the work of only a few minutes to figure out how to operate it. Then he really goes to town.

Beethoven has always been a favorite of his, and the Moonlight Sonata seems like an excellent piece to warm up his musical muscles and get used to the small ball he’s using as a piano. His right hand is flexing and relaxing, rising and falling, twisting and turning, and his left hand conducts to keep him on rhythm and to have something to do.

“That’s nice,” Sheppard says from the doorway, and Rodney barely has time to think “off” at the little ball before he’s dropping it and whirling around.

“What do you want?” It comes out more accusatory than planned, but that can’t be helped.

Sheppard shrugs. “That looks fun. I’d like a go.”

“It doesn’t give you super speed or flying capabilities,” Rodney says mulishly.

“Always wanted to do musical stuff,” Sheppard replies calmly, “but I couldn’t get both hands coordinated.” He reaches past Rodney and grabs the ball, silently initializes it, and slips his fingers into the indentations. “HOw’s it work?”

“Figure it out yourself.” Rodney turns his back, hating himself even as he does. Sheppard’s ATA gene is such a strong expression he’ll have no trouble with the device. And the things he does with it - he turns firing drones into an art, for fuck’s sake.

It’s a matter of minutes before Sheppard is flying in a figurative but beautiful sense. The music isn’t anything Rodney’s ever heard before, probably something the pilot’s making up on the spot, but it’s haunting and riveting. Rodney can’t help but turn around and see Sheppard’s eyes closed, left hand floating oddly beside him, device dancing as Sheppard creates one of the best pieces of music Rodney’s ever heard.

It was true of the piano, it’s true of physics (Samantha Carter is the true artist there), it’s true of the ATA gene where John Sheppard wins hands down, and now it’s even true of this small Ancient piano-ball.

He’s a great clinical player, but he’s no artist.


	2. Lots of Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to commenter ArwenOak, who really helped me solidify some ideas necessary for this chapter. You're the best!

The concert comes to a close, and Sheppard’s eyes open. He looks so at peace, so pleased with himself, that a rush of envy and hatred washes over Rodney. He closes his eyes and tries to push both emotions away.

“Hey, McKay, you okay?”

His eyes snap open and he glares at Sheppard. “Get out, and take that stupid ball with you.” Okay, so he didn’t do such a good job at emotional management, but it’s too late to take it back.

Sheppard looks confused. “I thought you liked the music.”

“I thought I did, too.” Rodney turns his back firmly on the major. “Take it or leave it, just get out.”

After a long moment of silence, Sheppard drops the ball gently beside Rodney, but his arm lingers there instead of leaving as ordered. “McKay—“

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

Rodney shrugs. Don’t anything, he guesses, but that’s not a good idea to say out loud.

“Look, if you … if I … whatever, I didn’t mean to, okay?” The muscles in his forearm shift as he speaks, and Rodney finds himself staring at them just to avoid looking at the handheld piano. “I don’t have to play it again.”

All Rodney can do is shrug again. It shouldn’t matter if Sheppard plays it again, since he’s so much better than Rodney could ever be, but it _does_. The man can already make music with the control chair, with any technology shoved into his hot little hands really, but why does it have to extend to literal music? It’s the one thing outside of physics he’s never given up on, even when told he sucked at it, the one thing that gives him respite.

On one of the first flights to the mainland, Rodney finagled his way into the puddlejumper under the guise of monitoring it on longer in-atmosphere flights, but his real interest was in the beach. The border between beach and woodland, to be precise. He wasn’t disappointed, either. He keeps in a small box under his bed 88 small rocks, 52 white and 36 … well, they’re not black, but they’re obviously not white, and that’s just good enough for him. He pulls them out and sets them up whenever the stress of life in another galaxy gets to be too much. He’s just realizing that he had hoped unconsciously for this piano ball (and god but that needs a new name) to be another secret escape for him.

“McKay?”

“You’re better with it.”

Sheppard shrugs; Rodney can feel it in his own shoulders more than he can see it. “First of all, I don’t agree with that. Second, who cares? Third, if you wanted this to be a secret, I have no problem with that. Wouldn’t even ask for a turn with it.”

“You’d want turns.”

That horrid laugh springs into Rodney’s ear. “Of course I would. But that doesn’t matter. Not like this matters to you.”

They stand in silence, then Rodney darts his left hand out and snags the ball, slipping his fingertips into the dips. He thinks _quiet, quiet_ and begins a simple warmup exercise. Maybe that will improve his output.

“I have an idea,” Sheppard announces suddenly.

Rodney glances at him, sees the other man staring at the ball. “Congratulations.”

“Shut up.” Sheppard shifts closer, takes Rodney’s elbow, fits his fingers over Rodney’s. “You’re doing a piano warmup, right?”

“Mmhmm,” Rodney confirms with a nod, distracted out of the repetitious sounds by the heat of Sheppard’s hand.

“You keep using the same fingers. I think you’ll get a better warmup with one intended for guitar.”

Rodney lets his hand go slack, lets the major press and release and inadvertently stroke through a short warmup, but he shakes his head after a minute. “Different fingers being neglected, but—“

“It’s still happening, yeah.”

“Different fingers,” Rodney repeats.

“So we just—“

“That should—“

“Yeah,” Sheppard says with a grin. “Key?”

Rodney thinks for a second. “G?"

“Yeah, keep it simple, good thought. Ready?”

Rodney grins back, the joy of discovery lighting his nerve endings. “Ready.”

They start at the exact same moment somehow, which sends a dart of _yes right more_ through him. The device takes that to mean _louder more_, and Sheppard actually gasps at the change, though his fingers never falter. Rodney feels the strength in them that comes from much harsher pursuits than his own manual dexterity, feels the trigger callus and the muscles from manipulating P-90s and pistols. He feels the strange press of fingers in time with his but almost out of phase, pressing and releasing totally different places, guiding without forcing Rodney’s own fingers into the guitar warmup even as he leads the piano.

They still at the same moment, and the _perfect yes again_ causes the device to warm slightly in their hands. “Wow,” Rodney breathes.

“I wonder what their music sounded like,” Sheppard muses. “Nothing like ours, I guarantee.”

“I bet you could coax a full orchestra from this thing with enough practice,” Rodney murmurs before flinching at his own words.

Sheppard laughs, this time a soft, almost intimate sound. “Not me. What we just did was hard enough.”

“Switch?”

The major grinned. “Absolutely.” He withdrew his fingers slowly, his throat moving in Rodney’s peripheral vision. “Be warned, that’s a weird role to play.”

Rodney isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he changes the subject, feeling anything but deft. “Key change?”

“C?”

“Sold.” He drops the ball gently into Sheppard’s hand, waits for the other man to get it situated, then curves his hand underneath, lining up each finger with one of Sheppard’s. It feels weird, just as he was warned; his hand is a little bit smaller than Sheppard’s, and it shows as he stretches unnaturally. This is surely not how the ball was intended to be used.

“Wait,” he says suddenly as he feels the tension coil into his play-mate’s fingers. “No more warmups. Let’s play something real.”

Sheppard shrugs. “You know any Johnny Cash?”

“I think Ring of Fire is my favorite. Can’t sing it, though.”

The braying laugh makes a comeback, and Sheppard nearly drops the ball. “I wouldn’t imagine it’s in your range. Mine, either. Radek can do it, though.”

It’s Rodney’s turn to jerk and nearly drop the ball. “Zelenka?” he squeaks.

“You know another Radek?”

There’s a particularly troublesome but necessary piece of equipment Rodney’s silently nicknamed Radek, but … “No.” Now is not the time to have Sheppard ask what’s named after him. (The puddlejumpers. All of them. They mostly don’t cause trouble, but when they do it’s catastrophic.)

“So no singing. Ready? Ring of Fire?”

Instead of answering verbally, Rodney readjusts his hand and gently taps each finger in turn, ensuring he has good reach. He nods, and they begin, effortlessly and seamlessly together.

The song lasts longer than the warmup had, especially with the two false starts Rodney causes by not pressing hard enough. On their third attempt, though, it comes together like magic, and somehow the resulting music sounds like a guitar and a piano, or is that in Rodney’s head?

“Jesus, do you hear that?” Sheppard whispers as they bring the song to a close. Rodney doesn’t move his hand, needing to prolong the connection he gets so rarely.

“Yeah,” he whispers back.

Sheppard turns to him and grins. “We’re almost real artists, now. Just need to write our own song, I guess, but wow. We’ve got the sound right, we can play together, we’re good together.”

“Sheppard—“

“John.”

Rodney hesitates. It’s a fundamental shift in their relationship, this name change, but so is practically holding hands and making music together. “John. What did you come in here for?”

John looks totally blindsided. “What did I … Uh … Oh! Dinner.”

Rodney’s stomach growls at the reminder. “Good idea. We can become artists another day.”

John smiles, looking almost shy. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Of course, you already are an artist, by both of our definitions, so it’ll just be you dragging me along for the ride.”

John frowns, the first time since he showed up in the doorway of the remote lab. “Dragging y— What are you talking about, McKay?”

“I’m a good clinical player, but I’m not an artist. I lack heart or soul or whatever you want to call it. And you can call me Rodney.”

“Rodney,” John begins, then sighs. “Look, I don’t know who told you that or in what context, but they were wrong. I knew that the moment I heard that music in the hall. There’s plenty of heart in you, and you put it in everything you do, and if you think I don’t notice that then you don’t know me at all.”

Rodney shrugs. “Old piano teacher. When I was a kid.”

“Because nobody matures and changes,” John scoffs. “Mc— Rodney, I’ve seen you change since you got to Atlantis. I’ve seen your heart come through so many times. Why would music be different?”

Rodney shrugs again. Even if John were right, there’s nothing he can do about it. Some things are too deeply ingrained to change.

“Let’s go get dinner. We can play again tomorrow."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all I planned to write, but who knows. I feel like there's more story, I'm just not sure I'm going to tell it.
> 
> This was originally meant to be an exploration of how the ATA gene is similar to music, but that clearly went out the window before the first word. I share this original idea in case any of you, dear readers, are moved to take it. Please do! I'd love to read it!


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